2012 policy report card: Health care forecast

Patty Murray: She’s in line to be the new chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee and is sure to have an important voice in shaping any long-term deal on Medicare savings — perhaps pushing back on Obama if he goes too far. But will she have any more success than she did as co-chair of the supercommittee?

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Paul Ryan: He’s returning to his role as House Budget Committee chairman, and he’ll still have a critical role in any Medicare deal despite his loss as Mitt Romney’s running mate. If anything, he’ll be more interesting to watch now: He has to decide how hard to push for some version of Medicare premium support, and he has to negotiate in a way that keeps his options open for 2016.

Gary Cohen: The director of the HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight has been on the job only since this summer, but he’ll have a critical role to play as the agency rolls out final rules and prepares for the launch of the health reform law’s major components in 2014. He’ll have to work especially hard to make sure HHS can step in to help the states that won’t run their own health insurance exchanges.

Mike Leavitt: He would have run Romney’s transition, but now the former HHS secretary and Utah governor is expected to return to his consulting practice. That would allow him to resume the role he had before: advising states, including those with Republican governors, on how to move ahead on exchanges so they don’t give up that power to the federal government.

Rick Scott: Everyone’s waiting for the Florida governor’s next act since he declared he’s ready to talk with the Obama administration about finding common ground on the health care law. He still talks like someone who will never really see eye to eye with the administration, but now that he claims he’s dropped his all-out opposition to the law, what’s his endgame?